RSS Feed
Twitter
Focus on the Arts, Art Night, Highland Park High School, Highland Park, 04.17.07
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 8:46 PM
Companion Planting
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 5:08 PM
Attended the Defrag conference at Lorain County Community College [LCCC] these past two days. What a wonderful facility LCCC has!
Just like the last Defrag, I had an ah-ha moment at this one. This moment came from one of the other attendees -- Soren H. We were discussing connections in regional economies after my presentation. He said, "I think what we need is something akin to 'companion planting', after all isn't an economy a lot like an ecosystem?" Economy = Ecosystem? Sure! "But what is companion planting?" I inquired. He explained that it is a concept from organic gardening -- plants can benefit from having certain other plants close by in the garden. You can create the right mix to benefit the whole garden.
Of course! An economy that has the right mix of connected talent will work in the same way. Each benefits from having the other nearby resulting in creative combinations and win-win scenarios while the garden/economy benefits the most from the combinations and connections.
Which combinationations and connections are best for your regional economy?
Network Weavers in Action
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 4:32 PM
The most exciting part of my consulting this last year has been realizing how many "natural" network weavers are already at work in communities and organizations. Listening to their stories, I'm discovering on a much deeper level what it means to be a network weaver.
For example, Jon Lloyd was trying to tackle MRSA, the deadly resistent staph infection that has been spreading through hospital systems. As a type of network weaver we call an Innovation Seeker, Jon went looking beyond the usual sources for insights that would help hospitals in Western Pennsylvania deal with MRSA. He found a Fast Company article that told about the Sternin's, a couple that had developed a strategy called Postitive Deviance in their efforts to end starvation among children in Vietnam. It helps organizations identify what's working and then enables people to self-organize to experiment and spread successes. He also pulled in staff of Plexus Institute, which is helping people apply complexity theory to solve intractable problems.
Quite a leap from MRSA to Vietnam and complexity science--but that's what Innovation Seekers do: they see connections and patterns in unlikely places. The application of Positive Deviance in this new setting has dramatically lowered MRSA rates in the Pittsburgh Veterans Administration Hospital System in just over a year. In addition, it's unleashing the creativity of housekeeping staff and patients, who are coming up with many of the most powerful solutions!
For more on the Pittsburgh experiments, see the latest issue of Emerging at Plexus Institute's site.
For example, Jon Lloyd was trying to tackle MRSA, the deadly resistent staph infection that has been spreading through hospital systems. As a type of network weaver we call an Innovation Seeker, Jon went looking beyond the usual sources for insights that would help hospitals in Western Pennsylvania deal with MRSA. He found a Fast Company article that told about the Sternin's, a couple that had developed a strategy called Postitive Deviance in their efforts to end starvation among children in Vietnam. It helps organizations identify what's working and then enables people to self-organize to experiment and spread successes. He also pulled in staff of Plexus Institute, which is helping people apply complexity theory to solve intractable problems.
Quite a leap from MRSA to Vietnam and complexity science--but that's what Innovation Seekers do: they see connections and patterns in unlikely places. The application of Positive Deviance in this new setting has dramatically lowered MRSA rates in the Pittsburgh Veterans Administration Hospital System in just over a year. In addition, it's unleashing the creativity of housekeeping staff and patients, who are coming up with many of the most powerful solutions!
For more on the Pittsburgh experiments, see the latest issue of Emerging at Plexus Institute's site.
